On a social level, the tavern is the gathering place for the lovers of wine. The tavern is where mystics meet. It is the Sufi house of zikr. It is where Hindu bhaktis sing their bhajans. It is the Buddhist Sangha, the Christian fellowship. It is the kiva and the campfire. It is the circle of true seekers, deep thinkers – and wine drinkers.

But understood esoterically, the tavern is the place within oneself where the many disparate and scattered parts of the individual come together in a unified whole to become drunk on the free-flowing Celestial Drink. Yogis sometimes identify the tavern energetically with either the brow or crown chakra, Sufis are more likely to locate it in the heart. Both are correct. The union of self first occurs in the radiance of the crown, but then it settles into the heart where it rests in easy majesty. There the scattered selves join together into one whole Self, in harmonious, single-voiced song…

The Tavern Haunters

Being a tavern haunter means
Being sprung free of yourself.

The tavern is where lovers tryst,
Where the bird of the soul comes to rest
In a sanctuary beyond space and time.
The tavern haunter wanders lonely in a desert
And sees the whole world as a mirage.
The desert is limitless and endless —
No one has seen its beginning or its end,
And even if you wandered in it a hundred years
You would not find yourself, or anyone else.
Those who live there have no feet or heads,
Are neither “believers” nor “unbelievers.”
Drunk on the wine of selflessness,
They have given up good and evil alike.
Drunk, without lips or mouth, on Truth
They have thrown away all thoughts of name and fame,
All talk of wonders, visions, spiritual states,
Dreams, secret rooms, lights, miracles.

The aroma of the Divine Wine
Has made them abandon everything;
The taste for Annihilation
Has sent them all sprawling like drunkards.
For one sip of the wine of ecstasy,
They ahve thrown away pilgrim staff, water jar, and rosary.
They fall, and then they rise again,
Sometimes bright in union,
Sometimes lost in the pain of separation;
Now pouring tears of blood,
Now raised to a world of bliss,
Stretching out their necks like racers;
Now, with blackened faces, staring at a wall,
Or faces reddened with Unity, chained to a gibbet;
Now whirling in mystic dance,
Lost in the arms of the Beloved,
Losing head and foot like the revolving heavens.
Every passage that the Singer sings them
Transmits the rapture of the invisible world,
For mystic singing is not only words and sounds;
Each note unveils a priceless mystery.

They have thrown away their senses
And run from all color and perfume,
And washed in purified wine
All the different dyes: black, green, or blue.
To them, devotion and piety are only hypocrisy;
They are weary of being either masters or disciples;
They have swept the dust of dunghills from their souls,
Without telling even a tiny part of what they see,
And grasped in bliss at the swirling robes of drunkards.
They have drunk one cup of the pure wine
And have become — at last, at long last — real Sufis.

One Response to “The Celestial Drink 6: The Tavern”

Dear Mr. Ganger, I came to your poetry chaikhana several years accidentally by searching the poem of one sufi saint and I emailed to Mr. SHAH who is my spiritual brother. Now he regularly e-mailing me your commentary on the poem which I enjoying very much. My spiritual master was sufi master and I always enjoyed his work. Thanks a lot for your insight to each poem which helps me to climb the ladder of spirituality. Marry Christmas and Happy new year. Love Mohini .